• Young Driver Test - Day 2

Maldonado confident of Pirelli progress

Pastor Maldonado was testing tyres for Pirelli while young drivers carried out more duties at Silverstone © Sutton Images

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• Drivers:
• Pastor Maldonado

• Teams:
• Williams

Pastor Maldonado is confident Pirelli has solved its issues with its tyres after completing a morning on its new structures at Silverstone on Thursday.

At the British Grand Prix last month Pirelli suffered several blowouts using its 2013-spec tyres, and although none of them were on the Williams, Maldonado said the new tyres were much more reliable during his morning of testing at Silverstone on Thursday.

"We need to work together and believe in Pirelli," he said. "They worked hard to solve the problem, they knew where the problem was and today we didn't have anything.

"I think in terms of reliability there has been a step forward clearly. We did some long runs with no problems and no vibrations that we've had in the past. In terms of performance we don't know because even the pressures were set by Pirelli. We didn't touch the car."

Under the regulations of the test race drivers have to work to run plans and set-ups dictated by Pirelli and not their team. He said it was difficult to judge how the performance had changed, but he believes the new tyres, which are based on a 2012 structure with 2013 compounds, are more predictable over long runs.

"I think there is an improvement in terms of reliability and performance," he said. "Maybe the tyres are not quicker than the ones we had but they are more consistent, which is quite good. We don't have that clear an idea because, as always in a test, we don't know what the others are testing but it seem to be quite normal and good.

"We had some other problems in the car and we need to work around the tyres, which we couldn't do today because we are being limited. It will be very interesting to work around the tyres to see if the car can improve but at the moment we are being limited."

Maldonado believes it is still too early to say whether the new tyres, which will be used from the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards, will offer a competitive advantage for Williams.

"We have some problems in the car," he added. "I think the tyres are not going to change the whole situation. Hopefully in our car there is something, we don't know. We don't know how this change is going to affect the other teams so we need to be in the same situation to see."

Laurence Edmondson is deputy editor of ESPNF1

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